were covered over with the foul deposits of damp vapors that
forever hung around; the atmosphere was thick with impure exhalations
and poisonous miasma; the dense smoke from the ever-burning torches
might have mitigated the noxious gases, but it oppressed the dwellers
here with its blinding and suffocating influence. Yet amid all these
accumulated horrors the soul of the martyr stood up unconquered. The
Roman spirit that endured all this rises up to grander proportions than
were ever attained in the proudest days of the old republic. The
fortitude of Regulus, the devotion of Curtius, the constancy of Brutus,
were here surpassed, not by the strong man, but by the tender virgin and
the weak child. Thus, scorning to yield to the fiercest power of
persecution, these men went forth, the good, the pure in heart, the
brave, the noble. For then death had no terrors, nor that appalling life
in death which they were compelled to endure here in the dismal regions
of the dead. They knew what was before them, and they accepted it all.
Willingly they descended here, carrying with them all that was most
precious to the soul of man, and they endured all this for the great
love wherewith they were loved.

The constant efforts which they made to diminish the gloom of their
abodes were visible all around. In the ancient world art was cultivated
more universally than in the modern. Wherever any large number of men
was collected a large proportion had the taste and the talent for art.
When the Christians peopled the Catacombs the artist was here too, and
his art was not unemployed. In these chapels, which to the population
here were like what public squares are to the inhabitants of a city,
every effort was made to lessen the surrounding cheerlessness. So the
walls were in some places covered over with white stucco, and in others
these again were adorned with pictures, not of deified mortals for
idolatrous worship, but of those grand old heroes of the truth who in
former generations had "through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought
righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched
the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness
were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of
the aliens." If in the hour of bitter anguish they sought for scenes or
thoughts that might relieve their souls and inspire them with fresh
strength for the future, they could have found no other objects to